Computer Fundamentals Questions and Answers

Answer: B

Correct answer: Error detection

A parity bit is appended so that the number of 1s in the group is always even (or always odd). If a single bit is corrupted in transit or in storage, the count no longer matches and the error is detected - though parity locates nothing and so cannot correct it.

Answer: C

Correct answer: Low-level language

A low-level language works in the terms the machine itself uses - its instructions, its registers, its addresses - so it is close to the hardware and tied to one processor family. Machine code and assembly language are the two levels of it; a high-level language hides the machine behind statements written for people.

Answer: D

Correct answer: auto decrement

In auto-decrement addressing the register named in the instruction is first stepped back and only then used as the effective address. The order matters: decrement-then-use is what makes it the natural complement of auto-increment for pushing onto a stack that grows downwards.

Answer: C

Correct answer: James Gosling

James Gosling designed Java at Sun Microsystems, where it was released in 1995 with the promise of compiling to bytecode that any Java Virtual Machine could run. Dennis Ritchie created C, John Backus led the FORTRAN team, and Grace Hopper drove the development of COBOL.

Answer: B

Correct answer: NAT

NOR, AND and XOR are logic gates - circuits that produce an output from one or more binary inputs. NAT is Network Address Translation, the technique a router uses to map private addresses onto a public one, and is not a gate at all.

Answer: D

Correct answer: Buses

A bus is the set of parallel conductors along which the processor, memory and controllers exchange information - the address bus carrying the location, the data bus the value, and the control bus the timing signals. Bays hold drives, flash memory stores data, and CMOS keeps the setup settings.

Answer: A

Correct answer: Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd

VSNL stood for Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited, the state-owned company that carried India’s international telecommunications and provided the country’s first public internet access in 1995. It was sold to the Tata group in 2002 and later renamed Tata Communications.

Answer: A

Correct answer: Arithmetic logic unit

ALU stands for arithmetic logic unit - the part of the processor that performs the arithmetic (add, subtract, multiply) and the logical operations (AND, OR, NOT and comparisons). The control unit decides which operation it performs and supplies the operands.

Answer: A

Correct answer: Laser disks

On an optical disk the data is recorded as microscopic pits pressed into a reflective layer; a laser beam scans the track and detects the change in reflection at each pit edge. Tape and punched cards store data magnetically and mechanically, and a RAM cartridge holds it electronically.

Answer: B

Correct answer: Sequential

Tape is a long strip that can only be wound past the head from one end towards the other, so reaching a particular record means passing over everything recorded before it - sequential access. Direct and random access require a medium whose parts can be reached in any order, such as a disk.